Seminar #7: General Opening Stats

Welcome back Students, hope you had a great Independance Day! This week is the start of our second course which focuses on openings. This week I will give you basic information on the opening stage of the game, the part where the battle erupts!

So if you're playing white, there is a tiny,tiny edge that you have when you begin a game. Since white moves first, you have an extra tempo, or time. That is something to consider if you are playing white or black. According to statistics, in tournament games between humans and computers, white wins 52-56% of the time. However, there are many defenses in Black's arsenal that can hope to equalize or give the advantage, which will be covered later.

White is said to have the advantage since s/he gets a lead in development, as in this example:

As you can see, white has the upper hand. This can be easily prevented by some openings like the French Defence.

Now the thing is, white only has the first-move advantage if he plays reasonable moves. This example is white making bad moves:

Now a good white player would make moves like this:

So that's it for this week. Now I will post some great openings for both white and black that can give your opponent a hard game!

White

Our 2nd course is about White, and our 3rd is about Black. Great job! We will also have a "General Opening Course" which is the 4th. It's about general opening moves, targeted tword both side, not just one like 2-3.